HOA vs. Management Company | Discovery & Sanctions | CV2017-094721
In this Maricopa County Superior Court case, the Woodmar IV homeowners association alleged that Paul S. Rubin, Inc., doing business as PRM Association Management, stole roughly $244,000 from the association while serving as its property manager, pleading breach of contract, negligence, and conversion. The case never reached trial — it was a two-year discovery war. The court compelled forensic inspection of the management company’s servers, computers, and QuickBooks files, held the manager could not shield its records behind a claimed fiduciary-duty privilege, awarded the association fees as sanctions, denied the manager’s bid to end the case over contractual notice-cure-and-mediate conditions, and allowed a punitive-damages amendment before the parties settled in August 2019.
Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Woodmar IV Association, Inc. v. Paul S. Rubin, Inc., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2017-094721.
Scope note: This page covers Woodmar IV Association, Inc. v. Paul S. Rubin, Inc. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2017-094721) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, including the January 30 and 31, 2019 under-advisement rulings on discovery and sanctions and the April 3, 2019 under-advisement ruling on the pleadings; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected minute entry, dated August 21, 2019, records that a Notice of Settlement was received and the case was placed on the court’s dismissal calendar for October 21, 2019 — the collected minutes do not include a final dismissal order or any terms of the settlement. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.
The takeaway
This case never produced a merits verdict — it settled — but the association won every substantive contested motion in the collected record; the only defense motion granted was a scheduling-order amendment. The court compelled the former management company to permit forensic computer inspections, held that the company could not withhold association-related records under a claimed fiduciary-duty privilege because an association owes no fiduciary duty to its individual members and neither, therefore, does its agent, and ordered that the association could remove imaged copies of the manager’s servers, computers, and QuickBooks files from the manager’s premises. The court awarded the association attorneys’ fees and costs as discovery sanctions, denied the manager’s motion for judgment on the pleadings based on contractual notice, cure, and mediation conditions — noting the parties had actually mediated unsuccessfully — and granted the association leave to add a punitive-damages claim based on what discovery had turned up. With a renewed sanctions motion awaiting argument, the parties settled in August 2019.
Case Participants
Petitioner Side
- Woodmar IV Association, Inc. (Plaintiff)
Homeowners association formerly managed by the defendant; alleged the management company stole approximately $244,000 of association funds and mismanaged and withheld its financial records. - Clint G. Goodman (Counsel)
Counsel of record for the Association throughout the case; appeared at the January 2018 status conference and the March 2018 oral argument on the motion to amend. - Mark A. Holmgren (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for the Association at the December 2018 scheduling conference and the 2019 oral arguments and discovery conferences.
Respondent Side
- Paul S. Rubin, Inc. (d/b/a PRM Association Management) (Defendant)
Property-management company that previously managed the Woodmar IV community; resisted forensic discovery of its computer systems and sought dismissal based on contractual conditions precedent. - Brian E. Ditsch (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for Paul S. Rubin, Inc. in the early 2018 phase, including the January 2018 status conference and the March 2018 oral argument. - James A. Robles Jr. (Counsel)
Counsel of record for Paul S. Rubin, Inc. from mid-2018, appearing at the December 2018 scheduling conference and the January 2019 oral argument. - Michael John Hrnicek (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for Paul S. Rubin, Inc. at the December 2018 conference and the 2019 oral arguments, including the February and April 2019 hearings.
Neutral Parties
- Joshua D. Rogers (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who presided over the early phase, including the arbitration-track conference, the first motion to amend, and the referral to a settlement conference. - David J. Palmer (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who presided from September 2018, granted the Association’s motion to compel by signed order, and issued the under-advisement rulings on reconsideration, sanctions, judgment on the pleadings, the second amended complaint, and the computer-imaging disputes.
What happened
Woodmar IV Association, Inc. is a homeowners association; Paul S. Rubin, Inc., doing business as PRM Association Management, is the property-management company that previously managed the community. The Association filed its complaint on July 31, 2017, alleging that while PRM managed the property it stole approximately $244,000 from the association. As the case developed, the Association’s claims included breach of contract, negligence, and conversion, built on allegations that PRM economically damaged the Association by mismanaging its funds, failing to keep accurate financial records, and failing to properly disclose those records to the Association.
The case began on the compulsory-arbitration track. At a January 2018 telephonic status conference, Judge Joshua D. Rogers vacated a scheduled arbitration hearing and extended the arbitration deadline while the Association’s motions to amend the complaint and to vacate arbitration were briefed. In March 2018 the court granted the Association’s motion to amend the complaint after oral argument, and in June 2018 — under the parties’ joint scheduling order — it referred the case to a mandatory settlement conference to be held by the end of November 2018.
Discovery became the center of the case. After PRM failed for roughly a year to allow entry onto its premises and forensic inspection of its computers, the Association moved to compel in June 2018; Judge David J. Palmer granted that motion by an order entered September 25, 2018. PRM moved for reconsideration, arguing among other things that the material was privileged because of a fiduciary duty owed to individual homeowners. In a January 30, 2019 under-advisement ruling the court rejected that argument — finding correct the Association’s position that an association owes no fiduciary duty to individual members, so its agent-manager owes none either — and denied reconsideration. The next day the court ruled on the Association’s motion for discovery sanctions: striking PRM’s answer and entering a default judgment of $244,567.00 was “too extreme” at that point, but the court warned it would seriously reconsider such sanctions if PRM kept delaying, and it awarded the Association additional attorneys’ fees and costs. In June 2019, with no response from PRM, the court set those at $8,000.00 in fees and $54.20 in costs.
The forensic-inspection fight continued into 2019. After an April status conference, the court ruled on April 29, 2019 that the Association could remove imaged copies of data from PRM’s computer servers, laptop and desktop computers, and QuickBooks files from PRM’s premises for off-site examination, rejecting PRM’s insistence that review happen only at its offices with its own expert “looking over their shoulder.” When PRM sought “clarification” in May 2019 to protect attorney-client material — an issue the court noted had never before been raised — the court on August 12, 2019 simply added a clawback protocol: if the Association received a document reasonably deemed privileged, it must stop reading it, make no use of it, and notify opposing counsel. The same day, the court denied PRM’s request to transfer the case to Commercial Court as impermissibly late under either version of Rule 8.1.
PRM’s main merits attack also failed. Its motion for judgment on the pleadings argued the Association had not complied with contractual conditions precedent — notice of the alleged breach, a 30-day opportunity to cure, and an offer to mediate. In an April 3, 2019 under-advisement ruling the court denied the motion, noting the Association’s arguments that the cure provision presupposed an ongoing business relationship that no longer existed, that the parties had actually mediated unsuccessfully, and that the Association had offered to dismiss the litigation to mediate — an offer PRM refused. The same ruling granted the Association leave to file a second amended complaint adding a punitive-damages claim based on information turned up in discovery, applying Rule 15(a)(2) and Owen v. Superior Court and finding no unfair prejudice since no trial date had been set. The court denied PRM’s motions to reconsider that ruling on April 30 and again on August 9, 2019.
The endgame came quickly. On August 14, 2019 the court set oral argument on the Association’s renewed motion to reconsider sanctions, to which PRM had filed no response in sixty days. One week later, on August 21, 2019, a Notice of Settlement was received; the court vacated the argument and placed the case on its dismissal calendar for October 21, 2019, to be dismissed unless a stipulated judgment or stipulation for dismissal was submitted first. The collected minute entries do not disclose the settlement terms.
Procedural timeline
Complete uploaded source-document index
This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/woodmar-iv-association-v-paul-s-rubin-inc/raw/: 21 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.
Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Oral Argument Set
Type: Court/source PDF
Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Oral Argument Set
Type: Court/source PDF
Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.
Oral Argument Set
Type: Court/source PDF
Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.
Under Advisement Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Under Advisement Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Under Advisement Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Under Advisement Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Under Advisement Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Oral Argument Set
Type: Court/source PDF
Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.
Oral Argument Set
Type: Court/source PDF
Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.
FAQ
What was this lawsuit about?
Woodmar IV Association, Inc., a homeowners association, sued Paul S. Rubin, Inc. — the property-management company doing business as PRM Association Management that previously managed the community — alleging that while PRM managed the property it stole approximately $244,000 from the association. The Association’s claims included breach of contract, negligence, and conversion, resting on allegations that PRM mismanaged the Association’s funds, failed to keep accurate financial records, and failed to properly disclose those records to the Association.
Who won the case?
No one won at trial, because there was no trial: on August 21, 2019 the court received a Notice of Settlement and placed the case on its dismissal calendar. But in the collected minute entries the Association prevailed on every substantive contested motion — the motion to compel, PRM’s reconsideration motions on discovery and on the pleadings (the latter denied twice), the computer-imaging dispute, the fee awards, the motion for judgment on the pleadings, the Commercial Court transfer request, and leave to add a punitive-damages claim; the only defense motion granted was a scheduling-order amendment. The settlement terms are not in the court’s minute entries.
Why did the court order the management company to open its computers to the HOA?
The Association served discovery seeking entry onto PRM’s premises and forensic computer inspections tied to the claims in the complaint, and after about a year without compliance it moved to compel under Rule 37(a)(3)(B). The court granted the motion, and on reconsideration rejected PRM’s argument that the records were privileged because of a fiduciary duty owed to individual homeowners — finding correct the Association’s position that an association owes no fiduciary duty to its individual members, so PRM, as the Association’s agent, owed none either. The court later ruled the Association could remove imaged copies of PRM’s servers, computers, and QuickBooks files for off-site examination, subject to a clawback protocol for any attorney-client material.
Was the management company sanctioned?
Yes, financially. The court awarded the Association its fees in connection with the motion to compel, and in the January 31, 2019 sanctions ruling awarded additional attorneys’ fees and costs — set in June 2019 at $8,000.00 in fees and $54.20 in costs after PRM filed no response. The court declined the Association’s harsher requests — striking PRM’s answer and entering a default judgment of $244,567.00 — as “too extreme” at that stage, but warned it would seriously reconsider such sanctions if PRM unreasonably delayed disclosure again. A renewed sanctions motion was awaiting argument when the case settled.
Why didn’t the contract’s notice, cure, and mediation clauses end the case?
PRM moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing the Association failed to satisfy conditions precedent in the parties’ contract: notice of the alleged breach, a 30-day opportunity to cure, and an offer to mediate. The court denied the motion, noting the Association’s arguments that the cure provision was designed for parties in an ongoing business relationship — which no longer existed — that the parties had in fact mediated unsuccessfully, and that the Association had even offered to dismiss the litigation to mediate, an offer PRM refused. The court also denied PRM’s two motions to reconsider that ruling.
Is this case binding on other Arizona HOA disputes?
No. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent, and this case ended in a settlement rather than a judgment on the merits. It is still instructive reading for associations and management companies: it shows a court ordering forensic discovery of a former manager’s computer systems and financial files, rejecting a privilege theory built on fiduciary duty to homeowners, enforcing discovery orders with fee sanctions, and allowing a punitive-damages amendment based on what discovery revealed.
Case Dossier
This generated dossier mirrors the structured data surfaced on the OAH/ADRE case pages. It is added from the curated court-case record and the custom page source package, while the hand-authored analysis below remains intact.
Case Summary
| Case ID / citation | CV2017-094721 (Maricopa County Superior Court) |
|---|---|
| Court / tribunal | Superior Court |
| Decision / key date | April 3, 2019 |
| Judge / panel | Hon. David J. Palmer, Hon. Joshua D. Rogers |
| Parties | Woodmar IV Association, Inc. (Plaintiff, homeowners association) v. Paul S. Rubin, Inc., d/b/a PRM Association Management (Defendant, former property-management company) |
| Topics | procedureboard-governanceattorneys-feesmeetings-and-records |
| Outcome / holding | In its April 3, 2019 under-advisement ruling the court denied the management company’s motion for judgment on the pleadings — rejecting its argument that the association’s suit was barred by contractual conditions precedent requiring notice of breach, a 30-day cure period, and an offer to mediate, where the business relationship had ended and the parties had actually mediated unsuccessfully — and granted the association leave to file a second amended complaint adding a punitive-damages claim; the case then settled in August 2019 without any adjudication of the merits. |
| Primary public source | View source opinion/order |
Parties, Court, and Research Coverage
| Uploaded source package | 21 PDFs |
|---|---|
| Step-by-step docket roadmap | 13 roadmap entries |
| Video overview | No video embed currently configured |
| Study / briefing material | 1 section |
| FAQ / homeowner questions | 6 questions |
| Curated download aliases | 1 download link |
Key Issues & Findings
A Maricopa County homeowners association sued its former property-management company, Paul S. Rubin, Inc. (d/b/a PRM Association Management), alleging the manager stole approximately $244,000 of association funds while it managed the community, mismanaged the association’s money, and failed to keep and disclose accurate financial records; its claims included breach of contract, negligence, and conversion. The two-year case was dominated by discovery fights: the court compelled forensic computer inspections, rejected the manager’s argument that its records were privileged under a fiduciary duty to individual homeowners, ruled the association could remove imaged copies of the manager’s servers, computers, and QuickBooks files for off-site examination, and awarded the association attorneys’ fees and costs as discovery sanctions while declining, for the time being, to strike the manager’s answer and enter a $244,567 default judgment. In an April 3, 2019 under-advisement ruling the court denied the manager’s motion for judgment on the pleadings based on contractual notice, cure, and mediation conditions and granted the association leave to add a punitive-damages claim based on what discovery had revealed. With a renewed sanctions motion set for argument, the parties settled in August 2019 and the case was placed on the dismissal calendar.
On the pleadings, the court held the case could proceed despite the contract’s conditions precedent. PRM argued the complaint had to be dismissed because the association never gave notice of the alleged breach, allowed a 30-day cure period, or offered to mediate before suing. The court credited the association’s responses: the cure provision was aimed at parties working together in an ongoing business relationship, and there no longer was one; the parties had in fact engaged in mediation, albeit unsuccessfully; and the association had offered to dismiss the litigation to mediate, an offer PRM refused. On the same day the court granted leave to file a second amended complaint adding a punitive-damages claim, applying Rule 15(a)(2) and Owen v. Superior Court, 133 Ariz. 75 (1982): leave to amend must be freely given, mere delay is not enough to deny it, no trial date had been set, and the new claim arose from the same alleged conduct, so there was no unfair prejudice. PRM’s motions to reconsider were denied in April and August 2019.
The discovery rulings carried the case’s most consequential legal analysis. After granting the association’s motion to compel entry onto PRM’s premises and forensic computer inspections under Rule 37(a)(3)(B), the court denied reconsideration in a January 30, 2019 under-advisement ruling. It rejected PRM’s claim that the information was privileged under a fiduciary duty owed to individual homeowners, finding correct the association’s argument that an association has no fiduciary duty to its individual members and that PRM, as the association’s agent, has no such duty either. The court also found PRM’s reliance on an unpublished court of appeals decision about medical records, Manzutto v. Gass, improperly cited and easily distinguishable. In an April 29, 2019 ruling the court ordered that the association could remove imaged copies of data from PRM’s computer servers, laptop and desktop computers, and QuickBooks files from PRM’s premises, rejecting PRM’s demand that review occur only at its offices under its expert’s supervision; an August 12, 2019 ruling added only a clawback protocol for any attorney-client material and otherwise left the order unchanged.
On sanctions, the court’s January 31, 2019 ruling acknowledged that striking PRM’s answer and entering a default judgment of $244,567.00 under Rule 37(b)(2)(A) was ‘clearly allowed by law,’ but found those sanctions too extreme while the reconsideration motion had only just been decided — while warning it would seriously reconsider them if PRM unreasonably delayed disclosure again. It instead awarded the association attorneys’ fees and costs on top of the fees already awarded with the motion to compel, fixed in June 2019 at $8,000.00 and $54.20 after PRM filed no response. The court separately denied PRM’s request to transfer the case to Commercial Court as impermissibly late under either version of Rule 8.1. In August 2019, with the association’s renewed sanctions motion unanswered and set for argument, the parties filed a notice of settlement and the case went on the dismissal calendar.
This case is one of the clearest local examples of an Arizona homeowners association turning the litigation tables on its own former management company. HOA disputes usually feature owners suing boards; here the association itself pursued its manager for roughly a quarter-million dollars in allegedly stolen or mismanaged funds, and the court’s rulings show what that recovery effort looks like in practice — forensic imaging of the manager’s servers, computers, and QuickBooks files, off-site examination by the association’s expert, and fee sanctions when the manager stalled.
Two rulings deserve particular attention. First, the court held a management company cannot resist producing association-related records by invoking a fiduciary duty to individual homeowners: the association owes no fiduciary duty to individual members, so its agent-manager owes none either. Second, contractual notice-cure-and-mediate conditions did not bar the suit where the business relationship had ended and mediation had actually been tried and failed. The case also shows the practical arc of many association-versus-manager fights: sustained discovery pressure, escalating sanctions exposure, and a settlement before trial. As a superior-court matter resolved by settlement, it binds no one beyond the parties — but it is a useful roadmap for associations auditing a former manager’s books.